City Council Resolves That The Downtown Greenway Is A Good Idea And Maybe Somebody Should Give It Some Money

Ed Cone notes that Greensboro has made Popular Science's top-50 "green" cities list (we're #50!). Maybe we'll move up in the rankings now that our city council has endorsed the proposed downtown greenway. Community activist DN sent me the resolution that the council approved this morning:

RESOLUTION OF SUPPORT FOR THE DOWNTOWN GREENWAY PROJECT

WHEREAS, the Greensboro Bicentennial Commission identified the Downtown Greenway as the signature commemorative project for the Bicentennial, and

WHEREAS, the Commission has made the project the focus of a significant private fundraising campaign; and

WHEREAS, the City has supported Commission stakeholders in refining the route and design concept for the project; and

WHEREAS, City and MPO transportation plans propose a Battleground Rail Trail extension to Downtown that would form the Downtown Greenway’s western arc; and

WHEREAS, the Downtown Greenway would support the City Council’s Policy for creating a more walkable Greensboro through walking and bicycling improvements; and

WHEREAS, the project would support the policies of the City of Greensboro Connections 2025 Comprehensive Plan, the MPO 2030 Long Range Transportation Plan, and the MPO and City’s adopted Greensboro Urban Area Bicycle, Pedestrian, and Greenway Master Plan (BiPed Plan).

WHEREAS, given the nature and scale of the project, City, State, and Federal support needs are anticipated to help plan, design, construct, operate, and maintain the facility.

NOW THEREFORE, be it resolved by the City Council of the City of Greensboro

The City of Greensboro City Council does hereby recognize and acknowledge the proposed Downtown Greenway as an important community project and that City, State, and Federal project development assistance and potential funding will be needed to help plan, design, construct, operate, and maintain the proposed facility.

Well, nobody's going to accuse the council of being rash. So far, Action Greensboro has been moving this project forward. Good for them, and thanks!

I Hope They Gave Him Something More Specific In Writing

City Council yesterday gave city manager Mitch Johnson a set of directives he'll need to carry out in order to keep his job:

• Work on issues in the Fire, Parks and Recreation and Communications departments.
• Reorganize the manager's office, which has only one assistant manager after the departure of Ben Brown, who left to become an assistant manager with Guilford County government.
• Have clear, consistent communication with the council.
• Work on his delegation skills.
• Provide an action plan within 30 days addressing how he will make these changes.

These are management objectives? How do you assess the outcome of "work on issues" or "work on delegation skills"? What does "clear, consistent communication" mean beyond continuing the lengthy "items for your information" memo that the manager provides to councilmembers on a weekly basis?

These objectives are too vague to be the basis of a reasonable performance evaluation. Their fuzziness will allow Mitch's supporters to say, no matter what he does, that he's done what he's been asked to do and should keep his job, and his critics to say he hasn't done enough and should be fired.

Republic Redux

In Climate Change and the Failure of Democracy, David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith argue,

... that democracy has failed humanity ... and demonstrate that this failure can easily lead to authoritarianism without our even noticing. Even more provocatively, they assert that there is merit in preparing for this eventuality if we want to survive climate change .... Society is verging on a philosophical choice between "liberty" or "life." But there is a third way between democracy and authoritarianism that the authors leave for the final chapter. Having brought the reader to the realization that in order to halt or even slow the disastrous process of climate change we must choose between liberal democracy and a form of authoritarian government by experts ...

Hmmm. Plato in the 4th century BC didn't even need the excuse of climate change to argue that an authoritarian "government by experts" (aka "philosopher kings") was desirable.

My own views are more in line with Karl Popper's, but it's good to keep in mind that democracies can and do fail (Athens's did), and that people with utopian, authoritarian schemes are always around waiting to force help us to do what's best for us.

Via Instapundit.